Acqua for life

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Last year Giorgio Armani signed a partnership with Green Cross International – Gorbaciov’s ONG committed to fighting extreme poverty and environmental degradation – to support the Smart Water for Green Schools project.

Spread via Facebook, the Water for Life campaign has two objectives: creating greater public awareness of the need to guarantee access to drinkable water to the circa 900 million people who live without it, and to provide long-term systems for water supply to 16 communities in Ghana. Having reached this first goal, which revolutionized life for some 27 thousand people, the fashion designer began the campaign again in March (it will last until 31 May), so the public need only click on the social network page to increase the quantity of water donated.

This year a well will be built in 6 villages in Bolivia and in another 12 villages in Ghana. Water collection structures are built on the roofs of schools, and locals are totally involved as they have to maintain the installations. Localization has specific symbolic value: traditionally water supply has been the task of women and children, so its immediate supply means children do not miss out on school. Mubarick Masawudu, president of Green Cross Ghana, takes stock of the situation. “We operate in isolated areas, where the local government, though sensitive to the problem, is unable to intervene. The first thing we verify is that there is a community seriously interested in cooperating on the initiative, and that will assume the task of maintaining the works.

Very often the first thing to do is build, with local assistance, access pathways to villages. In general, women are the best people to deal with: they take on the task of maintaining the supply structures much more seriously than men, and they are much more reliable in managing the proceeds of water supply, which are used to pay for maintaining the works”. It is difficult to quantify progress in terms of diseases linked to improved water quality: “Most of the villages do not have sanitary systems, and as such we do not have approved data from doctors or nurses, but the people themselves are unanimous in stressing that disease has diminished significantly”.

L'Uomo Vogue, May-June 2012 (n. 431)

The poster from the Facebook campaign.

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